


Away We Go

by Abagail_Snow



Category: Hunger Games Series - All Media Types, Hunger Games Trilogy - Suzanne Collins
Genre: Angst, Canon Compliant, F/M, Pre-Epilogue Mockingjay, Pregnancy, Romance, toastbabies - Freeform
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2014-03-26
Updated: 2014-03-26
Packaged: 2018-01-17 03:42:43
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 6,718
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/1372654
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Abagail_Snow/pseuds/Abagail_Snow
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>As they prepare for the birth of their first child, Katniss and Peeta try to find their place in Panem.  Inspired by the film Away We Go.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Away We Go

 

"What day is today?"

"What?" she says. She struggles to lift her hips from beneath his weight so she can push her underwear down her thighs.

His lips are on her throat, and she can read the words as they're spelled on her collar bone. "What day is it?" he repeats.

"Thursday, I think," she says. She breathes sharply as his fingers drift across her stomach, and settle between her legs. "Why?"

"Of the month," he clarifies before he slips a finger inside of her.

She tries to focus, but all her mind can digest is the rush of him filling her. "Why are you asking this now?" she demands shortly, starting to get annoyed by his questioning.

"It's just, rations were delivered yesterday." He withdraws his finger and traces it over that sensitive bundle of nerves that causes her to quake. "That's usually the third week of the month."

"Then that's what day it is," she says, and thrusts her hips off the mattress to meet his touch. He recognizes her anxiousness, and presses his thumb against her firmly. "Mystery solved," she adds between staggered breaths.

He nuzzles his nose into the crook of her neck, the heat from where his lips touch melts her skin. "We don't usually do this on weeks that rations are delivered," he says. "But we did it yesterday, and the day before."

"I didn't realize you were keeping a calendar," she says. Her mind is a thousand miles away from the conversation at hand, and she likes it that way. Her fingernails dig into the taught muscles of his back, hoping he'll join her in this bliss.

"Never underestimate a man's ability to track his greatest opportunities, to find himself in this exact position," he says and nods towards where their bodies are joined. "Generally during the third week of the month, I do not find myself to be so fortunate."

She lifts her head from the pillow to catch his lips with hers. Of course she doesn't want to be intimate with him the week of ration delivery, she's usually... When was the last time she bled?

She stills the delicious rhythm of his hand and pushes him away. "What are you trying to imply?"

"I'm not trying to  _imply_  anything," he says with an easy chuckle. His eyes seem brighter than usual, like he knows something that she doesn't. "I was just curious. That's all." He adjusts his weight so the length of his body is against hers. "Forget about it," he says, trying to steal a kiss.

"No!" She presses her palm against his chest to stop him. The pulsing between her legs is quickly fading, instead being consumed by her growing temper. "You think I'm late."

"I didn't say that."

"Just because – it doesn't mean that..." She feels her cheeks flush as suspicion sinks into her stomach. "It doesn't mean that I'm –" The words form on her tongue, but she can't say them out loud. She refuses to.

"Of course not," he agrees as he eagerly sneaks his fingers back between her legs.

She brushes his hand away and rolls onto her side so that her back is to him. "I'm tired," she mumbles against her pillow.

"Katniss," he says. He places his hand on her hip and urges her to face him. "I didn't mean anything by it, I swear."

"I know that you're hoping," she says quietly enough that she's not sure if he hears. Part of her doesn't want him to.

"I wouldn't mind it," he admits. The bed shifts as he moves to lay beside her, and the cool metal of his prosthetic leg makes her shiver when he tucks it between her calves. He hesitates – waits for her to push him away, but she could never deny the comfort of his arms, and she leans greedily into his chest even though she's upset with him.

"I'm sorry," he says. "I know how you feel about having children, and I respect that." He sighs and touches his lips between her shoulder blades. "I shouldn't have said anything."

"It doesn't matter," she says. "Because I'm not."

She isn't. She can't be.

Something stirs in her belly and she jumps in startle. Curling into a ball, she lays as still as a statue, until her body trembles from hugging her knees so tightly.

He gently strokes her arm. "Katniss," he says pleadingly.

"I'm tired."

In her dreams, President Snow and Alma Coin rip her child from her womb and place it in the reaping bowl, while she begs for them to take her instead.

She can't be pregnant.

* * *

Her belly seems to blossom overnight.

It starts off slowly, like the changing of the seasons. She feels sick, she feels hungry, she feels tired. It's nothing she hasn't experienced before.

Sometimes she aches from places she doesn't recognize, but she reminds herself that she's survived knives, and gunshots, and fire bombs. She can survive this too.

From the outside, nothing changes. Her face gets a bit rounder, but in a good way - a healthy way, which she likes. She's always found herself to be too thin, and when she notices the fullness in her cheeks in the bathroom mirror, she admires her reflection all through the morning.

But then, just as she's grown at ease with the pregnancy, she notices the bump. It stretches her quilted skin in directions the grafts weren't designed for, leaving tight ridges and pink seams along her belly that look ready to burst. Her stomach begins to get in the way. It's too round to climb trees, and too heavy to maintain her velvet tread through the woods to the point she stomps more loudly than Peeta.

Not that it matters, she's too tired to hunt. The journey's too far to make in a single trip and she finds herself resting by the remnants of the old fence, because she doesn't have the energy. And soon she can't even make it that far, and she collapses in the meadow, too exhausted to do anything but lie on the barren, frozen earth.

She's alone. An hour's walk from home when the baby stirs inside her for the first time. The panic she feels is paralyzing. She cradles her belly in her arms and cries until she can't breathe.

Beneath her feet lie the ghosts of District Twelve. She put them in the ground, every last one of them.

She's a danger to everything she touches, and she wonders how long it will be until this innocent child rests in the earth too.

Peeta finds her as night begins to fall and coaxes her to her feet. His hands are cold, but they feel warm against her pale cheek.

"I can't stay here," she says hollowly. Her eyes remain unfocused across the empty field, which quickly darkens as the sun dips below the horizon.

He wraps his arms around her, and it's only with his sturdiness that she realizes she's shivering. He kisses her temple and holds her even tighter. "I know," he says.

* * *

A week passes before he mentions it again. They're sitting at the kitchen table; Katniss drinking tea, while Peeta cleans their dishes from breakfast. The steady flow of water from the faucet is so loud she barely hears him when he poses the question:

"Could we leave? Even if we wanted to?"

She traces the rim of the porcelain mug with her finger and frowns.

Years ago, when the war ended, she was exiled to District Twelve. She didn't care to learn the details of her banishment. It kept her out of the spotlight for once, and that was all that mattered to her. After that, she had no interest in leaving. She thought about it, yes. There was her mother in Four, Gale in Two. There were people that she loved still alive, still within her reach, but she kept her solitude. Reveled in it. She was a ghost. A forgotten memory from the war. She liked it that way.

But the baby inside of her. It was real, it was alive, it didn't need to be punished for the sins that haunted its mother.

"I'm not even sure who to ask," she says.

Haymitch is no help, of course. He gruffly mumbles things about being out of the swing of things and promptly falls asleep before they can bother him again.

"We could just go," Peeta suggests. "There's nobody around to stop us."

It's true. The Peacekeepers have long been disbanded, and there's no real law enforcement – not in Twelve anyway. There were soldiers from Thirteen assigned to protect each district after the war had ended, but that was it. In the other districts they evolved into local police, but in Twelve, where every citizen was on a first, last, and third cousin's name basis with one another, the soldiers weren't exactly needed, and were absorbed into the community. Soldier Donaldson is a carpenter now, and Soldier Sinclair a plumber.

No one calls them "soldier" anymore either.

Katniss and Peeta are a part of the community, but no one depends on them. Peeta could never bring himself to reopen the bakery, and Katniss's skill sets weren't ones that could easily be domesticated. Instead, they live comfortably off their Victor and Veteran funds and provide bread and game to festivals and friends as a courtesy. Nobody would miss them if they left though.

It would be easy to pack up and go. Yet even without the physical barriers to imprison them here, Katniss can't help but feel like they're being watched. There's no reason, really. So much time has passed since the war that people don't talk much about the Mockingjay. But the fear still lingers.

Effie, of course, is the one with the answers they need. Katniss was to be sequestered in Twelve for five years as a part of her rehabilitation. At the end of the term, she'd need a full psychiatric evaluation to deem her acceptable for transfer. "Precautions, you know," Effie chirps over the phone. "In case you accidentally spark a revolution again."

Effie has already booked their train tickets before they have the chance to ask and schedules an appointment with Dr. Aurelius too.

All of their arrangements have been made. There's nothing stopping them now.

* * *

Katniss doesn't pack much. The plant book, the memory book, her father's hunting jacket, a blanket knitted by Prim, and her favorite green dress that was crafted by Cinna's hands. Every other memory in that house is replaceable, and she leaves them all behind.

They stop at Haymitch's on the way to the train station. "We probably won't visit often," she tells him. "This may be the last time you see us."

"Fine by me," he says. He hesitates to hug her, apprehensive of her rounded stomach. Sometimes she thinks he's as afraid he might hurt it as she is.

"Of course we'll be back," Peeta says, always the beacon of light in the dark blanket of Katniss and Haymitch's cynicism. "And when we settle down we'll send for you. You'll have to see the baby."

Haymitch eyes dart to her swollen belly again. Katniss knows he'll never come.

"Take care," is all he says.

Katniss picks up an empty liquor bottle off Haymitch's porch. She'll take that memory too, she supposes.

* * *

The train is nothing like the one they took to the Capitol before the Games. Passenger trains run regularly between the districts now, two a day, when it used to only be twice a year. There are local cars that carry a hundred passengers taking shorter trips, and the sleeper cars pack six compartments instead of only one.

A single train can freely transport nearly a thousand people anywhere they want to go in Panem. It's no longer a prison car for two souls on a trip to their death.

The bed is too cramped for both of them, and Peeta has to sleep on the one that's bunked overhead. She knows that he's still close, but he feels a million miles away when his body is outside of her grasp.

She hardly sleeps a second that night. The last time she was on a train it was to be her last. She wasn't supposed to come home from the Quarter Quell, yet here she is.

"There are no more Games," she repeats in her head like a mantra. "I'm safe. We're safe."

The brief moment that her mind is at rest, she pictures the stage where the interviews were held. Caesar presents her to the crowd and asks for her to spin like she always does.

The skirt of her dress puffs out like a bell and then the synthetic flames begin to eat away the fabric from the hem to the empire waistline. She stands before the audience in only her underclothes. Her pregnant belly exposed for the world to see.

"My, my," Caesar Flickerman exclaims with a predatory grin. "What shall we do with this?"

* * *

Most of the Capitol had to be rebuilt after the war. There are a few buildings left standing, like the training center and parts of Snow's mansion - those are the only ones Katniss can remember from the former Panem. Their old apartment is available, and Effie offers to book it, but both Katniss and Peeta are adamant against it. Effie has grown, there is no denying that, but there will always be things that she won't understand. The ignorance of Capitol life is a hard habit to break.

They stay in a modest suite on the edge of the city instead. It's one room. A bed, a washroom, a simplified version of the automated food service that only sends coffee, tea, and pastries. It's nothing like the gratuitous extravagance of the Old Capitol.

Effie comes to see them, showering them both with endless hugs and affectionate squeezing of hands. She didn't know that Katniss was expecting, Katniss hadn't thought to tell her, and Effie goes into an absolute tizzy over showers to plan and gifts she'll need to purchase and how they absolutely have to let her decorate the nursery. She mentally plans this all in an instant, and assures Katniss she'll handle the details.

"Do you know what you're having?" Effie asks, still beaming with excitement over them.

"A baby, we hope," Peeta says.

Effie is in shock. "You must know if it's a boy or a girl. We can have all the tests run. They can tell you the gender, eye color, hair color, any possible deformities... these scans can tell you so much about your baby, it could probably predict its first word!"

"If that word isn't 'Effie' than I don't want to know," Katniss says, earning an amused grin from Peeta.

"Stop it," Effie says, slapping Katniss's arm playfully, and Katniss isn't sure if it's because Effie is flattered, or because Effie recognizes that Katniss is being facetious. She likes to think it's the latter, and that makes her happy.

"You should really consider staying in the Capitol," Effie continues. "With access to medicine and a good education, you can give your baby the life that you were never afforded."

Katniss never thought in a million years that she would debate this option, but Effie has a point. The only skills Peeta and Katniss really have, they learned from their parents. In Twelve, their child would be destined to be a hunter or a baker because they don't know how to do much else. If her mother were around, she could teach her grandchild how to be a healer, but Katniss hasn't spoken to her in years.

"Would it be so bad?" she says to Peeta as they slip into bed for the night.

He hesitates. "If that's what you want," he says.

* * *

Although she has an appointment, Dr. Aurelius is surprised to see her.

"You're with child," he says, not sounding pleased. "The last time we spoke you were cohabiting with Mr. Mellark."

She can't ignore the growing tightness in her chest at his accusing tone. "Yes, I still am... It's his," she adds, feeling unnecessary shame. His frown grows deeper and it only makes her more anxious. "Is something wrong?"

"I'm concerned about how this may affect your recovery," he explains. "Given your history and his. The spike in hormones could trigger your depression, and for Peeta? He's very dependent on stability. Any changes to his daily routine could have catastrophic effects."

"I - I didn't know. I've been pregnant for months and he's been fine, not a single episode, I swear."

His mouth tightens into a tight line and his expression becomes impossible to read.

"We've discussed staying here," Katniss adds hastily. "He'll be able to get treatment then. If he needs it."

Aurelius sighs heavily and scribbles his name illegibly on her release form. "The Capitol is the last place he should ever be."

* * *

Peeta has an episode more violent than she's seen since his rescue in District 13. He leaves their suite in shambles, flipping every piece of furniture and ripping all the paintings from the walls. When Katniss goes to comfort him, he shoves her. She doesn't fall hard, and for once, when the baby kicks healthy and strong in her stomach, it's a relief.

"We can't stay here," Peeta says, when he's regained his sanity.

They leave in the morning.

* * *

He's still too shaken from his episode and he refuses to share the train compartment with her. The loneliness leaves her in anguish, and the screams from her nightmares are so gut wrenching, they wake the entire car.

An attendant comes to check on her. She's catatonic when he wakes her, and all she can do is vacantly brush him aside. "I need to find my husband," she tells him, wondering blindly out of the compartment.

She finds Peeta in the dining car, staring numbly out the window as darkness passes by. She slides into the bench beside him and wraps his arms around her.

"I need you," she says, her tears burning down his neck.

He doesn't say anything for a long while. He's so far away and she misses him terribly.

"I'll hurt you," he says finally, eyes still unfocused out the window. His hand trembles as it hovers over where their baby is growing inside of her. "Both of you."

"I won't let you," she says. "Snow and the Capitol, they can't hurt us anymore. Only if we let them." And then she adds, mostly for herself. "This baby is ours - not theirs, and we'll protect it, just like we do each other." She frames his face in her hands firmly until he holds her gaze. "Please, Peeta, please don't make me do this alone."

When they return to the compartment, he sleeps on the floor beside her, his hand planted in hers, never letting go.

* * *

It's only the second time Katniss has been to District Four. They were only there briefly during the Victory Tour, and Katniss had too many things on her mind to enjoy it.

The air is warm, even in the dead of winter, and all she needs is a sundress instead of being bound in layer after layer of wool and leather. The fabric is light and freeing, and when she holds her arms out to catch the breeze, it feels like she's flying.

Annie and Denny, her son, make a feast of shellfish cooked in the sand. Denny is the spitting image of his father, although his arms are still lanky and he hasn't grown into his height. His eyes are the exact same emerald shade of green though, and when he smiles at her, Katniss is brought to tears by the sight of her dear friend.

It's close to dusk when her mother arrives. It's been fifteen years since Katniss has seen her last, nearly her entire lifetime has passed again, yet they quickly settle into the kitchen as if those days aren't missing and put a kettle on the stove for tea.

"I have no idea what I'm doing," Katniss admits while they wait for the water to boil.

"Nobody does," her mother says. Her pale blonde hair has faded to a colorless gray, and the skin around her eyes and mouth have tightened with cracks of wrinkles. There's a glint of brightness to her eyes though that Katniss had rarely seen since her father's death. The hospital and District 4 have done her well.

"Prim would have," Katniss says.

The kettle begins to whistle and her mother distracts herself by preparing their mugs.

"She would have," she agrees, her voice growing distant.

Katniss watches her from across the kitchen. She's never been able to find her reflection in her mother's features, but after seeing Finnick's image smiling brightly at her, so vividly through his son, she can't help but wonder. "I'm afraid it may look like her - the baby. How will I be able to look at her - or him - if all I see is Prim?"

Her mother's fingers are cool against Katniss's cheek, and her eyes linger to scan every detail of her face. She sees her father, Katniss knows it, it's why there were times her mother could barely stand to look at her after he died.

"You'll be stronger than me," her mother says. "You're so strong. You'll make a wonderful mother."

She opens a small cabinet beside the stove to reveal a rack of spices. Her finger traces each row before she retrieves a silver tin.

"Here," her mother says after she's removed the lid. "Take a pinch and put it on your tongue."

Katniss obliges, letting the tiny leaves melt against her taste buds.

"What do you taste?" she asks.

"Mint, I think."

"Congratulations," she says, her smile widening. "You're having a girl."

* * *

She strips down to her underclothes and wades past the gentle waves far enough to float on the surface. The water is only waist deep, and Peeta stands beside her, his hands poised gently beneath her shoulders to keep her from drifting away.

"A girl, huh?" he says, and when she opens her eyes, the sun is shining behind him, casting his face in darkness. His smile is so bright though, it's the only thing she can see.

"Maybe," she says. "I don't know for sure."

"Have you thought of a name?" he says.

The thought leaves her terrified. A name. Because this lump inside her is a person, a little girl, and soon she will be in their arms and real. She doesn't want to think about it anymore.

"I think I want to stay here," she says instead.

They lay on the sand letting the sun dry their skin. Peeta reaches for her hand and squeezes it firmly. "I want to stay here too," he says.

* * *

Her mother doesn't leave her bed for three days. At first Katniss tries to ignore it. "She has the flu, I think," she tells Peeta, but there's a knowing look in his eye that she can't ignore.

She sits beside her mother's bed and tells stories about District Twelve while she coaxes her to eat. At some point Annie brings Denny over and they join her, singing songs about the sea that make Katniss's mother smile.

Katniss can't help but feel envious at the sight. Her mother always hated it when she sang.

The next morning Katniss is too tired to leave her bed. She refuses Peeta when he tries to carry her downstairs, and he feeds her like a stubborn child when she refuses to eat.

She'll never be strong enough, Katniss realizes. She'll be just like her.

"Maybe we should try some place else," Peeta says on the second night she cries herself to sleep. "Just to see how we settle in, we don't have to rule anything out yet."

Being near her mother is toxic for both of them, she knows that now. "Where?"

"The last time Delly wrote to me, she said they needed a baker in Thirteen. There are still a lot of survivors from Twelve living there and she says that things have changed a lot. It could be good for us."

* * *

District Thirteen is no longer underground. The wreckage from the old Justice Building has been leveled, and in its place a new town square has emerged. It's larger than Twelve's and most of the buildings are forged from steel and concrete, rather than lumber.

Twelve never worried about being fire bombed again, but Thirteen is prepared for it, although they never say it.

The houses all look identical, but some are larger than others. Delly lives in one of the bigger ones, and when she opens her front door, a stream of children aged 2 to 14 come storming past. She must have a dozen kids, and judging by the looks of her, she has another on the way. She hugs them both tightly than holds Katniss at arm's length to marvel at her.

"Look at you! You look like you could pop in any day!" she says.

Katniss isn't good with these types of pleasantries and she forces a smile. "You too," she says.

Delly laughs and pats her stomach. "Not even close. After the first pregnancy, you plump up over night, I swear."

There are a lot of children in Thirteen, not just Delly's brood. They fill the streets with laughter, which is such a sharp contrast to the sterile underground bunker that Katniss remembers.

"Why do you have so many kids?" Katniss asks while they're sitting alone at the dining room table, watching Peeta teach the little ones how to ice cupcakes in the kitchen.

"Not many people could," Delly says. "Only the refugees from Twelve, really."

"Did they force you to -" Katniss trails off, raising her eyebrows so it's clear what she implies.

"Not at all, no. It's nothing like that here anymore. We worked so hard to be where we are today, and we lost so many people too," she pauses, and Katniss knows she's thinking about her parents and the merchants who were as good as family to her that burned along with District Twelve. "I'd hate to see it all wasted."

One of the younger boys toddles over with icing smudged on his fingers and chubby cheeks. He holds up a lopsided cupcake to Katniss with a clump of pink frosting on top.

"Thank you," she says, looking up to catch Peeta watching her.

"'The sun always rises, even after a tragedy.' That's what my father always used to tell me," Delly says. She lifts the boy into her lap and cleans his fingers. "It's nice to see my family again when I look into their faces. I still miss them, but at least they won't be forgotten now."

* * *

In bad that night, she traces patterns by connecting the freckles on Peeta's bare chest. "Is this one a birthmark?" she says, tapping one on his hip which is larger than the rest.

"I don't know, maybe?" he says. He begins his own exploration, brushing her hair from her shoulder and pulling down the strap of her nightgown.

"How about this one?"

He doesn't even look. "I think that's a bug bite," he says, and this time his mouth connects with her pulse point.

"I'm trying to talk," she says, pushing him away. "Isn't there anything from your family you'd like to pass along?"

His eyes narrow curiously at her question, but he plays along. "I'd say the less she looks like me, the better. For her sake."

They rarely talk about Peeta's family and sometimes Katniss worries that he doesn't even miss them.

"What about your father's kindness," she prompts.

"No, that'll do her no good," he argues. "My father was a pushover. I want her to be strong," he rolls over her again and kisses her throat. "Like you."

"Your brothers - ?"

"Katniss..." he warns. "I wish everyday that they weren't gone, but this is the family I want. You are my family more than blood could ever be."

She thinks of the night in the rain when his mother beat him for burning bread, and the day of the Reaping when his older brother wouldn't volunteer, and the days between Games when he lived alone in his cold empty house. She would move heaven and earth for this boy. For this man. When they couldn't be bothered to.

She feels the same way about her mother sometimes. When she thinks about it, Haymitch has been more of a parent to her, and he can't stand her half the time.

She accepts his lips this time, kissing him fully as he bunches her nightgown up to her breasts. There aren't many comfortable positions they fit together anymore, but they've managed to make a few work. He rolls her onto her side and settles beside her and when he fills her, she's never felt more complete.

* * *

"We should go to District Two," she decides.

Peeta is happy in Thirteen, but Katniss feels just as lost there as she did in Twelve. "For Johanna."

Johanna doesn't have anyone left. Annie has her son and Katniss's mother, Delly has her brother and her husband and her children. The only person Johanna ever had was Finnick, and Katniss to an extent. Now she's just another forgotten Victor, haunting Panem with a past they'd rather forget.

Katniss remembers the day she gathered pine needles in the woods. It had meant so much to Johanna. She was so desperate for a home although she'd never admit it. Katniss knows how people like Johanna work, because she ticks that way herself. Guarded and stubborn. Bound to be alone.

Peeta is skeptical about the idea, but agrees. His mood is sour on the train though, and the first words he speaks comes hours after they've left the station.

"This is about Gale, isn't it?" he says.

The question stuns her. "Why would you think that?" she says too harshly. She feels defensive now, and realizes that maybe that's because he's partly right.

Gale was one of her dearest friends and things ended both abruptly and badly. She rarely misses him. Only sometimes when she's hunting in the woods does she feel that emptiness that only he could fill. But that chapter in her life is an important one, and although it was over, she doesn't want to leave it with the ending that it has.

She can see how it looks though. Gale was her family before Peeta became it.

"Forget it," he says.

She doesn't want to leave it at that. Not when something is obviously hanging so heavily above them. "No. Say it."

He drops his head into his hands, bunching his wavy hair between his fingers and tugging on the ends roughly. "I know that it's crazy," he begins tightly. "And there's no reason to even think it, but sometimes, there's this nagging voice in the back of my head - the tracker jacker venom maybe, I don't know. It's always there to remind me that the only reason you picked me, the only reason that we're here, is because he didn't come back."

They're sitting side by side on the small bed and she moves to sit closer, pulling away his hands so that he's forced to look at her. "That's not the reason. Don't think that."

His eyes are glassy with tears and now she feels like she may cry too. "Then because you blame him for Prim."

"No, that's not it at all," she says. She kisses his cheeks, over and over, the taste of saltwater on her tongue from his tears. "I never loved Gale. Not like I love you. There was never a choice." She kisses him again.

There are a million reasons why she and Gale never worked, and a million and one reasons why she and Peeta always will. She can't find a way articulate a single one though. She'll never have that way with words. And so these thoughts stay trapped inside her. Like the way his smile always fills her with hope, and his patience and empathy makes her see reason, and how eternally grateful she is for his kindness, because without it she wouldn't be here. She wants to tell him that her entire world spins because he loves her. How hollow she feels when he's gone.

Instead she can only hold him and cry and ramble incoherently like an idiot. "It's always been you, Peeta. Even when I didn't think I could love somebody else, somehow I loved you."

"You never wanted this life though," he says, still trying to talk himself out of it. "Now you're stuck with it because of the baby."

That was true when she was young, but that was because of the Games, mostly. The more she got tangled into the cruelty of the Capitol, the more it enforced her beliefs. That getting married and having a child were the last things she wanted to do.

But the target on her back is gone now, and all she can do with her life is rebuild what is left from the ashes. She doesn't want to leave only destruction as a memory. She wants to leave behind something good too. Like how much she loves this man sitting before her. This baby will be the embodiment of that.

"This is the family I want," she tells him.

He tries to smile. "We're not even married," he reminds her.

Technically their marriage is on official Capitol record. They never signed anything for it, but some clerks filled out paperwork on the night Peeta made his rash declaration on Caesar's show. They've never made it official though, not in the way that counted. The permanence of their relationship had always gone unspoken.

She orders a slice of bread along with a candlestick to their compartment, and they hold it over the flame until it singes brown.

* * *

Gale answers the door. It's Johanna's house, she'd checked the address, yet Gale is the one to answer. He seems just as startled to see her on the other side as she is.

It's been fifteen years, but he hasn't changed a bit.

Johanna appears a moment later. "Oh, Brainless, it's you. I thought you weren't due until tomorrow." Her eyes dip to her stomach. "Or however many more months that's going to take."

No matter how many times Katniss arranges these visits, she can't bring herself to mention the baby. It seems like such an awkward topic to bring up after not seeing anyone in so long.

District Two hasn't changed. It's still the pet of the Capitol, even under the new government, and the largest mountain that Katniss had nicknamed "The Nut" during the war has been repurposed into some sort of government security agency. It's where Gale and Johanna work.

Katniss can't imagine how Gale goes inside it every day knowing how easy it is to smoke somebody out.

She doesn't realize quite how many dour memories she has of District Two until she's standing in the town square, and can feel the sting in her side where the bullet had struck her. The Capitol amenities may be nice, but this place could never be her home to her.

At dinner, Johanna drinks too much. She laughs too loudly at Peeta's jokes, and she makes a dish shatter when she knocks it off the table, and when the topic of the baby comes up, she stares at Katniss flatly and says, "What? They don't have abortions in District Twelve?"

She laughs again when the room falls silent. "Come on! People like us weren't meant to reproduce. Not with the field day the Capitol had fucking us up. I'm surprised they didn't have us all fixed. They would have, I bet. If they didn't need new toys to play with."

"Johanna," Gale warns.

"It's true," she says. She plucks the wine bottle from the table and storms off with a quick: "I'm going to bed."

* * *

In the morning, Gale invites her to go hunting. Just a few snares to check, nothing too far. Peeta seems okay with the idea and even encourages her to go.

Gale has a car now, pretty much everyone in Two has one. They drive through town and then along a web of narrow roads until they're halfway up a mountain. There's a thick patch of trees in the rocky earth where Gale has woven an elaborate line of traps. Half of them are empty.

"The mountain lions out here climb trees better than you," he says when he notices that she isn't impressed. "Why don't you scurry up a tree and tell me I'm wrong," he says.

Katniss glares at him, she doesn't even think she can fit her arms around the tree, she's so big.

"So you and Johanna, huh?" she builds the nerve to say after he's freed the first rabbit.

Gale wants to talk about it about as much as she does. "A few years now, I guess," he says shortly as he hands off the rabbit. She stuffs it in her satchel. "That's not a problem, is it?"

"No, not at all," she says quickly. "It's fitting, actually. I don't know why I never thought of it before."

"Yeah." He sighs heavily and drops the snare he's working on. "Look, about last night. Johanna didn't mean any of that stuff. She's just been having trouble with things lately."

"I get it," she mumbles. Nothing Johanna said was too shocking. She's thought the exact same thing a hundred times before.

"No, you don't," he pauses again. "Johanna can't have kids. It has something to do with when she was tortured. Apparently they did something to her in the Capitol that can't be reversed. She only found out about it a few months ago."

"I didn't think Johanna wanted children."

"Neither did you," he says. "Sometimes you don't realize that you want something until it's taken away from you."

Gale always wanted children though. Even when the Games were held over his head, he still wanted a family. "How about you? How are you taking it?"

He smiles tightly and she can see the flash of disappointment in his eye. "I'm all right," he says in a way that only a person from the Seam would understand. Growing up there meant expecting nothing, but being loyal to the death to the things you had. Gale's hurting, but he'll never let Johanna feel that burden.

Back at the house, Johanna is curled against Peeta on the couch with tracks of tears staining her cheeks.

Katniss sits beside her and takes her hand. When the baby begins to kick, she presses Johanna's palm against her bump. "That's so weird," she says, and for the first time, Katniss sees wonder flash in Johanna's hard eyes.

* * *

"It's time for us to go home," she says to Peeta, and he nods wordlessly.

* * *

The bottles on Haymitch's porch haven't moved, but there are half a dozen new ones. Peeta knocks on the door five times before Haymitch answer.

"We're back," Peeta tells him.

Haymitch blinks at them wearily. "When'd you go?"

Katniss ignores his quip and wraps him in a hug.

"You still haven't pushed that thing out?" he adds dryly.

"She'll come out when she's good and ready," Katniss says.

Haymitch's eyebrows lift curiously. "She, huh? What'd I ever do to deserve two of you?"

They leave with an idle threat about calling him Uncle Haymitch, and while he grumbles something surly at the thought, when they turn to leave, Katniss catches him smile.

* * *

They lay in the meadow beneath the cool spring sun. The grass is as plush as a soft mattress, tempting her towards sleep. Something soft brushes her nose and she bats it away, but a second later it's there again. She opens her eyes slowly, squinting as she adjusts to the light.

"For you," Peeta says, tickling the tip of her nose with a dandelion.

She tucks it behind her ear then folds her hands over her rounded stomach before closing her eyes again.

"We should head home," he murmurs lazily.

"In a little while," she says, content. "I want to stay here."

 

**Author's Note:**

> Find me on tumblr (absnow)


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